


tell me you didn't mean to say i love you

by pasdecoeur



Series: superbat works [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Getting Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, USE YOUR WORDS U MORONS!!!!!! i'm., angst like a bullet train to the heart!, it's very on-brand, previously posted on antithestral, they're both DUMB. and in LOVE.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-03-01 15:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: Bruce knows Clark better than he knows himself, and he knows about the goddamn ring.(or, Bruce is an idiot who knows less than he thinks, Clark has a martyr complex the size of Texas, and none of this is Oliver’s fault, never mind what anyone says.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the working title for this for the LONGEST time was the ring, and then i realized OH WAIT I'M NOT WRITING HIGH-CONCEPT JAPANESE HORROR i'm writing garbage fluff damn. title from billie eilish's i love you, for. uh. reasons.

#### One.

Clark was staring at the ceiling of Bruce’s bedroom.

He had been staring at the ceiling for a while.

This was not, in itself, unusual. Technically speaking, Clark didn't need much sleep. In fact, if they were going to be properly technical about it, Clark had a theory that with constant solar exposure, he wouldn't ever need to sleep at all.

That didn't mean he didn't _like_ to sleep.

Especially now, especially here. this place he thought he would never reach, this place he never dared to hope he could rest in—

A warm hand tucked a little tighter over his bare torso.

“You’re awake,” Bruce said. His voice was sleep-hoarse and heavy. It rumbled over Clark like some hot, tangible touch, raking long nails over his chest.

Bruce slept naked—the knowledge of it had startled Clark in a bad way, back at the beginning of their vigilante partnership, when they had still been tense around each other, wary and untrusting.

Like a backbeat in his head it had followed him around, after the construction of the Hall— _he’s naked,_ some voice would remind him, on long nights at the Hall. _Six feet down from your door, asleep, naked, you could look, the walls aren't even lead-lined, you could look, you could—_ Evil and greedy and desperate.

“Can’t sleep,” Clark replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asked, like he really wanted to know.

Almost two years, they had been doing this thing. Two years, and the League had figured it out slowly, Diana and J’onn at first, then Dinah and through her, Ollie, and through him, Barry and Hal, and eventually Shayera and John and Victor, everyone else, as the League changed and grew.

They had learned to take it for granted. Had learned to roll their eyes when Bruce and Clark fought during JL meetings. The mom-and-dad jokes made a brief, horrifying resurgence, and then gotten boring again just as fast.

The League had learned to take them for granted— _Clark..._ hadn't.

Clark didn't think he would ever get used it.

Didn’t think he would ever be able to clamp down his heartbeat when he touched Bruce in public, even if it was only a touch of his palm to that broad shoulder, only the way their bodies would lean together for longer than Bruce would have allowed with anyone else after a long fight, only Clark would finding Bruce after patrol, after a long night, and Bruce would let him wipe the dust from his face with the drift of a thumb, and follow him to his quarters.

_Their_ quarters.

It made his heart beat faster even now.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Clark said softly. He found Bruce’s palm pressed over his ribs, and laced their fingers together. Tugged that hand up, pressed a kiss to his palm, and inhaled deeply, before settling their intertwined fingers over his heart again.

He resisted, as always, the urge to touch the base of Bruce’s bare ring finger.

There was a velvet box at the back of a drawer in his flat in Metropolis. He didn't think about that either.

* * *

It had been an impulse purchase, is the thing. Clark had been walking back home from work, actually walking, and it had been so new, then, this thing with Bruce, and he had seen the ring in the storefront window of a pawn shop: a band of bright platinum, two parallel grooves running its length. Simple, unassuming. Bold. He had stopped, staring at that ring, and his mind had run away with it, had imagined that ring on Bruce’s hand, and that feeling of rightness had slotted deep into his chest.

_‘No,’_ he had told himself, standing there, on the pavement, staring at that ring. _‘No, it's too early, it's presumptuous, you shouldn't,’_ and then he had thought of that ring on someone else’s hand, anyone else’s, anyone who was _not_ Bruce, and before he knew it, he had been striding into the pawn shop, setting a bell tinkling above him, while the proprietor, a wizened old Asian lady hobbled up to him, and squinted.

“The ring,” he stammered. “I’d like to buy it. The one in the window.”

“You have cash?” she demanded.

“Not right now. Do you, um. Take American Express?”

She rapped a bright yellow sign behind the till. CASH ONLY, it said. “No card. Cash only.”

So that was a hint. Wasn’t it?

That was a sign, from the universe, telling him to come to his goddamn senses. “I don't— I can go get it. There’s an ATM round the corner. I’m going to go get it.”

She stared up balefully at him, like a cat. Clark hesitated. “Don’t sell it to anyone in the, uh, next ten minutes?”

“Go get cash.”

Clark grinned. “Be right back.”

He had dashed to the ATM, and emptied his checking account, and stared for a moment at his reflection in the screen. Was he really doing this? Was he— Alright, yes. He was.

Afterwards, she had tucked the band into a velvet ring box, slid it halfway across the counter, and, with her hand still on the box, she had asked: “This ring. For you?”

“No,” Clark had said, hesitantly.

She stared up at him some more. “Engagement,” she concluded decisively. “For your boyfriend?”

Now there was a word they didn't use. His heart caught in his throat. “Yes,” Clark said, and he couldn't help his smile, soppy and too wide, when he said, “Yeah, it's for my— For my boyfriend, yes.”

“You need ring for you too, then.”

Oh.

Right.

Wow, was he bad at this.

“Wait,” she had commanded imperiously, and then bustled back to the back of the store. Some fifteen minutes later, she had returned, slammed another ring onto the counter. “Look.”

Clark obediently looked. “It matches,” he marveled.

“Yes. You keep both.”

“Don’t I have to, um, pay?”

“No,” she waved off. “I charge you too much for first ring. Keep both.”

“Oh.” He smiled again. “Um, thank you.”

She muttered under her breath, shooing him off. “Your boyfriend. Rich?”

“ _Oh_ yeah,” Clark admitted, and she finally cracked a smile. “Good,” she said. “Good. Because you are very dumb with money. Lucky boy.”

Clark managed not to say anything totally horrifying, like, _‘Really, I’m the lucky one,’_ or, ‘ _Lady, the size of his bank account isn’t what gets me going.’_ But he hadn't managed to stop smiling like a lunatic the whole way back home.

* * *

#### Two.

Bruce was watching him now, alert. “Clark.” There was a warning in his voice. _don't lie to me,_ was what Bruce wasn't putting into words.

But then, that was Bruce’s talent, wasn't it? Not putting things into words. Bruce preferred waiting for everyone else to figure things out, to make the first move, so he never had to concede safe ground.

Clark wasn’t bitter at all, what are you talking about?

* * *

The beginning of their relationship had been like that too. Bruce's thirty-fifth. It had been a quiet affair, just an evening at home, with Alfred and the kids. Clark had dropped in at the Batcave via the lower tunnels—didn't want to intrude on the rest of the family, but Dick had found him anyway, rolled his eyes when Clark said, “I don't want to—you know. I know the party is family only.”

Tugged on Clark's shirtsleeve like he was twelve. “Yeah? So come upstairs already.”

So easily, Dick had said it. _Of course you're family,_ like it was an _easy_ admission, like it hadn't speared Clark right through his ribs, harpooned the inside of his bones. Clark had followed numbly, deposited his gift by the towering stack on an end table in the ground floor parlor in the west wing, a fire blazing cheerfully in the hearth.

Bruce was caught in some kind of animated discussion with Barbara, him smiling faintly, her gestures growing progressively wilder, but he looked up the moment Clark arrived, preternaturally aware; Clark had seen his eyes brighten, the blue of his irises turn almost transparent. “Clark,” he had said warmly, and it had burnt through his bones like a warm shot of whiskey. “Hello. You nearly missed the cake.”

“He wouldn't have missed the cake if Drake didn't confuse _pastry_ for effective projectiles,” Damian spat, and got a faceful of seven-layer vanilla for his troubles. He vaulted over his chair with an outraged howl after Tim, while Alfred walked over with a plate of cake, in a perfectly cut wedge, and a cup of coffee brewed strong enough to make your ears pop.

“You're lucky tonight, Mr. Kent. We saved some.”

“Yeah, from the _hellspawn_ ,” Dick added, and got a very dry look from Alfred in return. “See how he's not disagreeing with me, though,” Dick said to no one, and then, looking up, “Oy! I broke that chandelier once already! Get _off_ , you morons!”

Clark caught Bruce's eye. ‘Happy birthday,’ he mouthed, tipping a forkful of cake in his direction, and then flew up to the ceiling to disentangle Damian and Tim from what was almost definitely a several thousand dollars worth piece of lighting.

* * *

He had found Bruce in the Cave later, staring at a map of the eastern border of Kundu, where the country’s Atlantic facing harbor towns were showing a worrying increase in activity.

“So. Thirty-five. That's an important number.”

Bruce snorted. “Thanks. You're not helping.”

“Okay.” He stared at the Batcomputer’s screen. “Pretty good haul you’ve got upstairs for thirty-five, though.”

He heard Bruce turn minutely, felt the weight of those eyes on him. “Depends. What did you get me?”

“Nothing big, just.” He met Bruce's eyes, felt that old familiar jolt through his chest, the almost sweet hurt of it. “Hey,” he smiled sheepishly, “it's hard to shop for a guy who's got it all.”

Bruce kept watching him. “Do you really think that's how it is?”

Clark paused. “No,” he said quietly. There was something here, now, something simmering between them. They were standing so close. If Clark was reading it wrong, he was about to end the most important relationship of his life. But if he was reading it right…

Oh, if he was reading it _right…_

“The most important things, the things you really want,” Clark said, and his gaze dropped helplessly to Bruce's mouth, to the soft line of his lips, “those things you can never buy.”

“No,” Bruce said, and his voice was shockingly low, enough to send liquid heat pooling in his stomach. “You can't.”

And Clark had— had taken a half-step closer, and leaned in a few inches— His heart had been a jackhammer on concrete, jumping wildly out of control, and his breath stopped when his lips touched the corner of that beautiful mouth. Terror and adrenaline roared through his veins; one of two things could happen now: either Bruce was about to deck him in the face, or he was about to kiss him back.

That moment hung for a long second, turned into two. Then three. Bruce was as stiff as a corpse. _Shit._ Clark swallowed the bile in his throat and pulled away.

He couldn't lift his eyes from the ground, couldn't feel anything but the vicious hot surge of embarrassment, blazing up his throat, across his cheeks. _‘Sorry,’_ he started to say and before he could get through the word, a pair of hands had grasped him by the back of his neck and shoved him against the computer console, and that mouth had crushed against his with a hungry, shaking groan, and Clark's body had thankfully caught up before his mind, had held Bruce tight, had practically sobbed with it, with the roar of desire, with the rush of aching relief.


	2. Chapter 2

#### Three.

So few words it had taken to start this thing between them.

How many words would it take to end it?

“Is this about what Oliver said?” Bruce asked.

“It's not important,” Clark replied quietly.

“If it's giving you _insomnia_ , it is,” Bruce retorted. The edge to his voice was keenly honed, sharpened to cut to the quick.

And what kind of defense did Clark have against that? Nothing.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Clark insisted. He was aware of how he sounded, how childish, and he was aware of the impulse that drove it--that animal fear. _If you pretend it doesn't exist, maybe it'll stop existing._

“I see,” Bruce said. His voice was cold, and hard, and distant. Clark closed his eyes. Against the backs of his eyes, he could only see the ceiling. In his mind, he could only hear the Arrow's words.

* * *

It had been just the four of them, Bruce, Clark, Ollie and Dinah, what would have been the unlikeliest of groupings just a few years ago, at the Watchtower. Dinah had been telling some incredible story involving Anatoly Knyazev, six Elvis impersonators and an unnamed member of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, that no one would have believed except it was _Dinah,_ and Ollie didn't come off well in it at all. “And _that_ ,” she said, while Oliver pantomimed hanging himself from the ceiling, “is why Oliver can officiate a wedding anywhere in the continental United States, including Guam, except for the city of New York.”

Bruce tipped his glass in Oliver's direction with a smirk. “For which the people of New York are eternally grateful, I'm sure.”

Oliver thudded his forehead down to the table with a muffled _‘Oh, shove a cock in it’_ and Dinah laughed long and low, rubbing the back of Ollie's neck absently.

“ _Has_ he officiated any weddings?” Clark asked Dinah, who rolled her eyes.

“Oh no. He wants to start his career in spreading marital bliss in _style,_ apparently.”

“I'm right _here_ ,” Oliver protested from the tabletop.

“In style,” Clark repeated, grinning. “Do I have to ask?”

“Aw, come on!” Ollie said, popping back up like some demonically happy whack-a-mole. “Oliver Queen can't just officiate _anybody’s_ wedding! You gotta make a statement with these things!”

“You need to make a statement,” Clark said, still smiling, “with somebody’s else _marriage._ ”

Oliver nodded earnestly.

“You know referring to yourself in the third person is a definitive sign of narcissism, right?” Bruce asked Dinah, ignoring Oliver for the sake of his sanity. “Delusions of grandeur, at the very least.”

“Oh believe me, I'm _well_ aware,” Dinah murmured.

“All I'm saying is,” Oliver was telling Clark, all wide green eyes and a coked-up choirboy smile, “you ever wanna put a ring on it, Supes, you give me a call, alright?”

Bruce had tensed almost immediately, and no one else could have felt it, other than Clark, the pause in his breathing, the tripped beat of his heart.

“Oh for the love of god, Oliver,” Dinah had said, but fondly, smacking him upside the head. Bruce had gotten up to refresh their glasses, commenting idly about Knyazev. The topic change was deftly maneuvered, but Clark wasn't like Bruce, wasn't as practiced at playacting when it came to things that… that _mattered_. The sound of Bruce's heart lingered for him, long after, and words stuck in his throat, got lost on their way out.

He had begged off soon after, with some comment about evil bosses and looming deadlines, and gone back to the Manor instead. Bruce had found him in bed, after patrol, typing away at his laptop.

He had stripped down, curled up under the covers, his back to Clark, without a word. Clark had stowed the laptop away. peeled off his t-shirt. Slid an arm over his waist.

Bruce hadn't responded but his heart did it for him, and Clark savored it. _You still want at least this,_ he thought fiercely. _You still want me._

That could be enough, Clark had lied to himself, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. He could make it be enough.

Flipping Bruce onto his back was easy. Pinning his wrists above his head, pinning that whole beautiful body to the mattress, all of it was easy.

“Want me to stop?” he had whispered into Bruce's ear and felt him shake underneath.

“Don't stop,” Bruce had husked, grinding against Clark's hardening cock. Already, Clark could feel the slow drip of precome from the head, could taste sex in the air, heady and thick. “Don't you dare stop.”

So he hadn't and they hadn't, and afterwards, Bruce had curled around him, and Clark had lain on his back and stared at the ceiling, and thought about the velvet box in the drawer in his flat, and the fact that if Bruce ever found out about the true depth of Clark's feelings, he would leave so fast, super speed wouldn't do _shit_ to get in his way.

* * *

#### Four.

Bruce had found the ring about four months into their… relationship.

They had been at Clark's flat, one of those rare times when they didn't end up just fucking each other's brains out at the Tower or the Hall or, on a few memorable occasions, the Cave. The first time Bruce had met Clark as _Clark_ , the first time they had had dinner, and actually talked, and it had been… horrifyingly domestic, actually. Clark had tasted like Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Bruce had kissed him until that awful taste had been wiped away, until Clark was panting into his mouth, hard and hungry, groaning every time Bruce rolled their hips together.

For the first time, Bruce had found himself unbuttoning a shirt (flannel, 100% polyester, the stuff of nightmares) instead of watching Clark blur out of the suit, and there had been something delicious about that too, the slow reveal, skin bared to him inch by heady inch. In the end, Bruce had been too close to the edge to do anything more that hump furiously against that beautiful body, feel that cock pulse against his, take them both in his hand, jack them off hard and fast and rough, swallow all the sounds Clark made into his own mouth.

His t-shirt, Bruce had sacrificed to clean-up, and when Clark had splayed a heavy arm over his middle and promptly gone to sleep, Bruce hadn't had the heart to leave, studiously ignoring the satisfied purr all through his chest.

It had been the next morning, when it happened.

He had meant to borrow something to wear, and his hand had closed over the box.

His heart had stopped.

He had known, of course, that Clark had broken up with Lois only a few months ago. He hadn't known Clark had bought a _ring_ for her _,_ though. Hadn't known Clark had been that serious, that deeply in love.

But of course he had been. She was kind, loyal, fierce: _good_ , all the way through, and more honorable than nearly anyone Bruce had ever known: of course Clark would fall for someone like Lois Lane.

But the fact that Clark had _held onto her ring…_

That Clark hadn't been able to let go…

He closed his eyes.

What a fool, Bruce had been, to build this up in his head. It was easy to forget with Clark, because he had thought Clark saw him differently. Not Batman, not Bruce Wayne, but the man in the liminal spaces, the truth of him.

He didn't know it could hurt like this, being wrong about someone you loved.

What was that thing they said? ‘Not the marrying kind.’

That was it, that was Bruce Wayne in a nutshell. Good for a fuck. Not much more.

“Bruce?” Clark had called from the kitchen. “You coming? I'm making eggs. You want ‘em scrambled or really scrambled?”

Bruce slid the drawer shut, and walked into the kitchen. “Sorry. I wanted to borrow a t-shirt.”

Clark turned around from the stove, and those blue eyes dragged down his naked chest, dilating just enough to make Bruce warm all over despite himself. “Didn't find anything you liked?”

And Bruce smirked, strolled around the dining table, tugging Clark in by his belt loops. “Well, I did find this one thing…”

Clark's laugh curled through the room, sweet like incense smoke, and Bruce kissed him until Clark was trembling in his arms, was leaving bruises over his waist with how tight his grip was, was making these desperately wrecked sounds everywhere Bruce rocked their hips together.

And Bruce thought, with unprovoked viciousness, _‘Not thinking about her now, are you?’_ and the thing in chest hissed, _‘Mine, you’re mine, all mine,’_ like it had sunk its claws into Clark, and it whispered, _‘Never, never letting you leave, I’m never letting you go.’_


	3. Chapter 3

They didn't _have_ to get married, Clark told himself. He had this… this miraculous thing, with Bruce, this thing he hadn't let himself dream of. How much luckier could a guy get? How much more could he ask of the universe?

They didn't have to, he was in the middle of telling himself, Clark— God, Clark loved Bruce enough to not need more from him. He could do that, he could be a little better, and that was when Bruce said, flatly, “Look, Clark, I know about the ring.”

And Clark went cold, all the way inside. It was the tone of Bruce's voice. the angry, dismissive impatience, like he couldn't believe Clark was fixating on something so idiotic. 

“You do,” Clark said hoarsely. 

“You keep it in your _sock drawer._ ”

“Not anymore, I don't— hang on,” Clark propped up on one elbow, glaring at Bruce, “why were you going through my socks?!”

Bruce huffed irritably. “That's what you picked up, out of all that?”

“I don't keep it in the sock drawer. I haven't kept it in the sock drawer since—” Clark stuttered to a halt, thinking, rapidly discarding possibilities. When he spoke again, the cold had seeped into his throat, into his fingertips, the ache of it like radiation poisoning. “How long have you known about the ring.”

“Since a year and a half. I kept waiting for you to—” Bruce broke off. “You… You still have it, don't you? You’ve kept holding on to it.”

“Yes.”

Bruce closed his eyes, like he had taken a critical hit. His heart was jackrabbiting in his chest, and his skin had gone pale, ashen. “Are you ever getting rid of it,” Bruce asked, hoarse, like the words cost him something. 

“Jesus holy Christ.” Clark shoved the sheet away, rolling away from Bruce, sitting at the edge of the mattress, feet curling into the cold floor. It was— embarrassing. Humiliating. To think… to think Bruce would find it so repulsive.

The idea of marriage to Clark, that was what drained the blood from his face. The bare _idea_ of marrying Clark, and it made Bruce look like he was bleeding inside. 

God. 

He felt Bruce get off the bed. Heard him pull on his clothes in the dark. Clark had his back to him. He couldn't seem to move. Not when Bruce walked to the door. Not when he paused, as if to say something. Not when he exhaled, like the fight had gone out of his body. 

Not when he left. 

This is how the world ends, Clark thought, sitting in the dark, staring at the floor, the bed so cold. This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends. 

Not with a bang, but a whimper. 

But life went on, as it was wont to do. 

The League, bless them, realized within a meeting or two that something had changed between Batman and Superman, but none of them, mercifully, mentioned it to Clark. 

Well, he said none of them. 

But Diana did. 

“Clark,” she said, the second routine meeting after that terrible night. “I am sorry.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Clark managed to say, while the thing in his chest howled, and beat its fists upon his ribs, desperate to be let out, to let loose red tides of rage and helplessness and hurt-- _Why was I so easy to leave? he wanted to ask Bruce. Why was it so easy for you to walk away? Why doesn't it kill you like it kills me? Why?_

“Yes,” Diana said quietly. “I thought you wouldn't. But if you ever do…”

Clark managed some kind of smile. “I'll keep that in mind,” he said politely, and Diana snorted, disbelieving. “Yes I am certain you will,” she muttered, half to herself. “I don't know what it was that broke you two apart. But for what it's worth, I think Bruce is hurting just as much as you are, Kal.”

“Is that what you think.” Clark held her eyes, by sheer force of will. “Well, I'm sure you're right.”

“And I’m sure you think I’m full of shit,” Diana retorted, and that choked a genuine laugh out of him, as shocking as it was. “Well,” and now she was smiling back, “I had to say it. You are both… very close to my heart. It hurts to see you this way, Kal-El.”

“Steve know you talk to other boys like that?” Clark teased, but Diana's eyes gleamed with some strange light. 

“Steve _likes_ it when I talk to other boys like that.”

“Oh yeah?”

Mischief glittered in those bright eyes. “Steve likes doing a lot more than talking to other boys like that.”

...Oh.

Six hours later, Clark was still feeling kinda… whammied. 

“What's up with you?” Lois asked, poking him in the side. “You've been off all day.”

Clark blinked at her. Blinked around at the party around them. The Mulvenor Foundation had put on a hell of a party, for what was supposed to be a fundraising event. The champagne flowed and the guests glittered and the band played jazzy, instrumental versions of the Top 4. It wasn't as painful as it sounded. 

“I think Wonder Woman just propositioned me for a threesome,” Clark blurted out, neck heating up. 

Lois stared up at him. “Well,” she said, sounding choked. “That'll do it.”

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet for a moment. “Steve's pretty,” Lois offered after a while, but Clark shrugged. 

“Not my type.”

“No,” Lois agreed, “I guess he isn't.” 

Tall, Dark and Tortured, was how Lois had described Clark's type, years ago, well before she'd met Bruce in the cowl, and like they had put down a summoning circle and chanted out of a grimoire, the paparazzi camped out by the doors went into a sudden, shutter-click frenzy. 

“Brucie!” he heard about fifty of them chorus. “Over here, Bruce! Give us a smile, Mr. Wayne!”

His insides turned to lead. Oh god. 

But it was Bruce who found him, hiding behind a pillar, staring at his glass of whiskey like maybe the fumes would do him some good. 

”I didn't know you'd be covering this,” Bruce said quietly, without announcing himself. 

Or you wouldn't have come, Clark finished for him, in his head. “Yeah, culture is Marc's thing, but he’s got a virus, so.” He shrugged. “Here I am.”

“Here you are. I saw Lois in the crowd,” Bruce said. “She looked… Lovely. How'd you get her to come to this circus?”

Clark laughed. or he tried to. It came out a little hollow. “Oh, you know, begging and bribery, that sort of thing.”

He could feel Bruce's slow smile. He didn't dare to look. 

“Did you ever—” Bruce stopped abruptly. “Pardon me. I think I see someone—”

Clark turned that quarter degree he needed to look at Bruce. Properly. 

He looked… breathtaking, of course. The perfect cut of his suit, the way his body looked, draped in wool and Italian silk, the emerald gleam of his collar pin, platinum at his cuffs, dab of cologne at his throat. Clark could barely recall the number of times he had peeled one of those suits off Bruce.

“What,” Clark interrupted. Even looking at him hurt, that old, hot burn, like a fever. “Did I ever what.”

Bruce stared at him. Clark could hear his heart, the heavy percussive thud-thud-thud, filling up his ears like a tidal wave. “Did Lois say no? Is that why you… why you. You know. Were with me.”

“Why I what.”

“Was I supposed to be a rebound,” Bruce gritted out. 

“A rebound? From Lois?” Clark frowned. “Bruce, Lois and I dated for, like, a month, tops.”

Bruce was frowning too. Well, big whoop. Clark felt like he'd been shoved into the twilight zone. “You… I don't understand. You bought a ring for her within a month?”

Clark opened his mouth. Closed it. 

When he had first arrived in Metropolis, he had spent a little time at the city’s best hedge fund, and developed a predictive algorithm for anticipating the optimal point to short the Dow Jones industrial average, by effectively determining the symptoms that would predicate the next major downturn. It had taken him sixteen straight hours, but Clark had done it, and for the first time, afterwards, he had felt something that almost approximated a migraine, possibilities unspooling feverishly in his head, an endless network of forking paths, like he couldn’t make them stop. 

That was what this felt like, like he replaying all of their last conversation from a different perspective, from the perspective of someone who thought that ring was for…

Oh god. 

“Clark?” Bruce had begun to look worried. Clark wondered how long he had been standing there, staring mutely at Bruce. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Clark said, too quickly. “No. I don’t… We need to talk.”

And he watched the barriers slam down behind Bruce’s eyes, so hard it was almost deafening. “Sorry,” he said, but his voice was cold. “I really do see someone I know, I have to—”

“I just want to say, if you could postpone being angry with me, till, like, tomorrow morning? That would be helpful.”

Bruce’s brow crumpled. “Be angry with you? For wh—”

“This,” Clark said, and stepped in close, wrapped his arms around Bruce, who had stopped breathing entirely, and zipped them out through the open balcony doors, into the air and thereon, into his apartment. 

Bruce stumbled, on their landing, and Clark gripped him a little tighter. Gave himself a few seconds of superspeed, just to feel that, to feel Bruce so close to him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. Their mouths were only millimeters apart—not kissing him right then took a physical, deliberate effort. His throat felt dry as a creekbed in a Kansas summer. 

“Don’t do that,” Bruce growled; it sounded odd, under the superspeed, slow and distorted, and Clark snapped out of it. 

“I’m sorry, I know you don’t like, um. Assisted flying—”

“All my flying’s assisted, I’m not talking about that, you know I mean that thing you do where you slow down, and space out. Your face always looks like a teenage stoner on a bad trip.”

Clark choked on air. “Rude.”

“It’s your face.” He stepped away from Clark. “So. Talk.”

“Right.” Clark crouched down, and opened the bottom drawer on the chest, x-rayed for the false bottom panel, and scrounged out the box.

He looked up at Bruce, and for a strange, vertiginous moment, he couldn't help but think about how convenient it was, that he was already on one knee. 

“I was going to do this differently,” he told Bruce, who scowled at him some more. “I was going to… Well, I guess it doesn't—” He got up, feeling his joints creak like an old man’s. “Go on. Open it.”

When Bruce saw the ring inside, a ring clearly meant for a man— the plain, thick band, the gleam of platinum, the glitter of that diamond—his confusion only seemed to deepen. “I don't… Lois bought you the ring?”

Oh sweet fucking Christ. 

“Lois didn't have anything to do with—” Clark started to snap impatiently, before he forced himself to breathe out. “It was a month after your birthday. After we, you know.” 

‘Came in our pants in the Batcave,’ didn’t sound very romantic, even if it did make Clark feel all kinds of warm inside.

“I saw it in a store window and… I knew it was. I knew it was too early. I knew you wouldn't— And there never seemed like a right time! And then Oliver said the thing, and you— It was all just really bad timing, and I just— I couldn't bear it if you thought— If you thought I didn't, you know.”

“What?” The look in his eyes was indecipherable. Clark couldn't look away. 

“Don't make me say it.” 

They hadn't said it, before. Two years, and they hadn't— It had been so hard not to, for Clark, to not put it into words. Everytime Bruce had touched him, and the words had collected along his tongue, a flood, i love you i love you i can’t live without you, and it had taken excruciating effort, every time, to not say it out loud. 

“If you didn't what, Clark?” Bruce said, those eyes holding him still, paralyzed, a fly in amber. 

“I love you.” The words stung on their way out. “I couldn't bear it if you thought I didn't love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: the (actual) proposal (finally)


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce stayed quiet. Clark felt, quite physically, his heart drop. The possibility of rejection had stopped him from—from ever saying the words out loud, but now that he had nothing to lose, what was the harm, he had thought. What more could he lose, by saying the words.

Judging from the silence in the apartment, quite… quite a lot.

“Well,” Clark said, and he hated how his voice broke, before he forced it into something temperate, “that's why I never—” He cleared his throat. “Anyway.”

“There would be—Logistical issues.” 

Clark blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“If we were— How would that. There could never be any paperwork. Of any kind. Someone would find a record and our identities wouldn't withstand—”

“I don't want to marry you for the _courts,_ I want to marry you so I could be your _husband._ And you could be—mine.” _Mine._ No single word had ever sounded so good. 

“Your work is in Metropolis. Your job is in Metropolis. You have to—be _here_.”

“No, I don't.”

Bruce stared at him, blankly. 

“No, I don't,” Clark continued, “because Metropolis isn't _like_ Gotham, the crime here is either white collar, or just _stupid_ , neither of which I can prevent without an actual Met PD police shield. It's the big stuff I gotta take care of, but Bruce—the distance barely matters. If there’s an issue, I could fly in from Hong Kong just as fast as I could from anywhere in the city, never mind _Gotham._ ”

“So you would… You’d move. You’d _want_ to move to Gotham?”

Clark could feel his heart pounding up against his ribs. His skin felt electrostatic, his _teeth_ somehow hurt. “Only if—I mean, only if you wanted me there.”

“I—” He was staring at Clark, like he had lost to ability to vocalize sound. 

“Bruce?”

“Ask me.”

“What?”

Bruce shoved the ring box into his hand, and the brief brush of his fingers felt like touching the surface of the sun. “ _Ask_ me.”

“ _Ask_ —” Clark exhaled sharply. Dropped to a knee, and felt his heart climb to his throat. “I had a speech planned,” he said hoarsely. 

“Did you.” Bruce’s eyes were catching the silver lights of Metropolis’ nighttime, and they washed the color right of his eyes, made them almost translucent, like smoky glass. “I don't need the speech, Clark.”

“What do you need?”

“You.” He touched Clark’s face, and there was a softness to his mouth, to the corners of his eyes. “Clark… _ask—”_

“Marry me. Will you—” He fumbled open the lid of the ring box. “I love you more than anything I’ve ever—Mmmph.”

Bruce surged down halfway through the word, crushing Clark’s ringbearing hand between them, kissing him so hard they toppled backwards onto the floor, the shock clicking their teeth together hard. Bruce pulled back on a breathless laugh.

“Was that a yes?” Clark asked shyly. Why did proposing make him feel _fifteen._  Proposing was arguably the most adult thing you could do, and yet, Clark was practically squirming under Bruce, and not for the fun reasons. “Because that felt like yes.”

“Yes,” Bruce whispered, and punctuated it with a soft, aching touch of their lips. “Yes,” another kiss, at the corner of his mouth, “Yes,” touching his brow, “a thousand times,” the hinge of his jaw, tongue scraping along stubble, making Clark shiver in the heat, “ _yes_ , Clark, it was always going to be yes.”

  
  
  
  


Clark flopped onto his back, an incredibly stupid smile on his face, and stared up at the ceiling. Somewhere to his left, Bruce was still trying to catch his breath, which was doing really lovely things for Clark’s ego. 

A pillow hit his face. “Stop looking so smug.”

“You _like_ it when I look smug,” Clark retorted, still grinning like a dope. “You _like_ how I look all the time, because you _liiiiiike_ me.”

“Mm-hm. I can see marriage is going to be magical.”

  
  
  
  
  


Clark let the quiet rest for a while. Beside him, Bruce's breathing evened out, slowly, heart rate petering to a slow, steady thump, even if it wasn't by much. Bruce was pretty much on the bleeding edge on human fitness; his resting heart rate didn't get that high to begin with, not unless he was getting seriously laid.   
  
Like tonight. Clark grinned dopily to himself. "Hey you know what we should do."  
  
“Mmmmfrrgh,” came the response from the pile of blankets next to him.   
  
“Quit pretending to be asleep,” Clark said dismissively. “Listen, we should tell Ollie.”  
  
Bruce stuck his head out from the blanket-burrito and slitted one eye open, glaring balefully at him. “We should do _what_.”  
  
“I was thinking—”

“ _There’s_ the first problem—”

“That it would be _nice,”_ Clark said dangerously, “to be married by a friend.”  
  
“By _Oliver Queen_?” Bruce asked, in roughly the same tone that most people used for STDs and Alfred used for polyester blends.   
  
“He's ordained!”  
  
Bruce scoffed. “So is Jason. So is Lex Luthor, in fact, so you'll understand why I don't hold the professions in much esteem.”  
  
“We’re not getting your kid to marry us. He'll bring Kalashnikovs to the wedding and Ma doesn't like guns.”  
  
“ _I_ don't like guns! And I see you're not saying anything against Luthor.”  
  
“Luthor can marry us, sure. I’ll ask Bane to play flowergirl, shall I? I'm calling Oliver. Go back to sleep.”  
  
“That's it, I'm getting a divorce,” Bruce groused into his pillow, shifting like he trying to get comfortable.   
  
Clark didn't miss how he only stopped once he was plastered into Clark's side. He bit back a smile, and touched the arm slung possessively across his chest, traced it down to his hand, rubbed the body-warmed metal of Bruce's ring. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You're not going anywhere though.”  
  
“No,” Bruce rasped. “I'm not going anywhere. C'mere.” And Clark was being pulled into a warm, lazy kiss, the kind that went on forever, that you felt all the way to your toes, curling into Bruce's beautiful, warm body like they were a pair of mismatched parentheses.   
  
Bruce pulled away for air, and Clark took the time to say, “Bruce Kent has a nice ring to it,” shivering when Bruce found that spot on his neck, that felt like it was hardwired directly to his dick.   
  
“So does Clark Wayne,” Bruce countered softly, hands traveling south.   
  
“I have a _byline_ ,” Clark protested, but it came out weak.   
  
“I have a company.”  
  
“Fair enough,” Clark agreed too quiclly, and licked the long straining line of his bared throat. Felt the motion of Bruce swallowing.   
  
“Oliver's still not conducting the wedding.”  
  
Clark flipped them over, pinning Bruce to the mattress, wrists locked above his head. “Convince me,” he said with a grin.   
  
Bruce smirked right back. “Is this what marriage is going to be like? I exchange my sexual favours in return for things I want?”  
  
“Your favours do seem to put me in a giving mood,” Clark said easily. Their hips were perfectly slotted together, and Bruce had started a slow, sinuous grind. His mood felt dangerously giving already.   
  
Bruce chuckled, shaking his head, and Clark bent down to kiss the laugh out of his mouth. Yeah. 

Marriage was going to be magical. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to subcribe for updates and hit kudos <3  
> find me on tumblr @[pasdecoeur](https://pasdecoeur.tumblr.com)  
> also, if you've ever proposed to anyone, i think that's rlly brave an i respect u a lot.


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